A blog about the history, current state, and the future of the electric guitar and tube-based amplifier combo and how this de rigueur musical instrument that matured during the Rock N' Roll-era continues to both evolve and refuses to die.

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Even though batteries for wireless units and guitar tuners
should always put-out full 9-volts when tested on a voltmeter, can weak 9-volt
batteries in your Fuzz or distortion stompbox give you great tone?

By: Ringo Bones

I might be the last person to know about this electric
guitar “tone tweaking” trick during my amateur metal band days back in the late
1980s, but it has been empirically proven by guitar gods and guitar techs since
the days of Woodstock that a weak 9-volt battery that only puts out between 5.5
to 7.5 volts when connected to a voltmeter can actually result in a pleasing
tone when used to power your Fuzz or other distortion type stompbox effect
pedal. Famed guitar legend Duane Allman reportedly preferred weak batteries in
his Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face, though any voltage reading lower than 5.5-volts –
and depending whether your distortion pedal is IC op-amp or germanium
transistor based – it could be the difference between “death metal tones” to a dead
as a doornail silent stompbox. But why do weak 9-volt or PP-3 batteries produce
a pleasing tone when used to power your Fuzz Face / distortion type stompbox
effects pedals?

The “subjectively pleasing tone” one gets when using weak
9-volt PP-3 batteries on their distortion pedals is probably a holdover from
the days before the invention of more efficient solid-state silicon rectifiers.
Where electric guitar tube amplifiers still use vacuum tube power supply
rectifier and / or selenium rectifier based power supplies when a hard-struck
power chord usually causes power supply voltage sag and the accompanying warm
fuzzy distortion tone – and unlike your typical hi-fi vacuum tube amplifier,
this “fuzz tone” is usually in the 200 to 300 percent total harmonic distortion
range. Though there are some electric guitar vacuum tube amplifiers like use
both vacuum tube and solid-state rectifiers – Mesa Boogie for example – for reasons
of tone. This makes the GZ34 vacuum tube rectifiers, especially the NOS Mullard
types, are now highly sought after by vintage guitar amp enthusiasts. If only
Mullard made reliable versions of those pesky selenium rectifiers used in the
Fisher 500 C Receiver.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Even though it was the preferred vacuum tube for Jazz
guitarists near the end of the 1960s due to its use in the 1966 Ampeg GS-12R guitar
amp, is the 7591 vacuum tube deserve the acclaim as the Jazz guitarists’ vacuum
tube?

By: Ringo Bones

Sometimes I wonder whatever compelled the Russian vacuum
tube manufacturer Sovtek – via their Electro Harmonix arm – to remanufacture
the 7591 pentode output power vacuum tube during the first few years of the 21st
Century given that it became virtually extinct around the time when Ronald
Reagan ruled the free world. Was the Fisher 500-C and Hermon Hosmer Scott’s
receivers a runaway success during the height of the Cold War? Or was it that
the 1966 Ampeg GS-12R amp, oft used by Jazz guitarist on this side of the Iron
Curtain near the end of the 1960s, was also a runaway success for “underground”
Jazz guitarists in the then Soviet Union and the rest of the then Eastern Block
countries? Anyway, both guitarists and hi-fi enthusiasts are very eternally
grateful for Sovtek / Electro Harmonix for remanufacturing the 7591 vacuum tube
– not just for the still functioning 1966 Ampeg GS-12R amps the world over but
also the still working Fisher and Scott receivers needing fresh 7591 vacuum
tubes around the world.

The 7591 gained credence as the “Jazz guitarists’ preferred
vacuum tube” probably around the time of the Reagan presidency where NOS and
even (gasp!!!) used but still functional 7591 vacuum tubes were desperately
scrounged by discriminating Jazz guitarists and owners of Fisher and Scott
receivers in desperate need of fresh – or at least working - 7591 tubes. And
the 1966 Ampeg GS-12 guitar amp gained a reputation as a clean Jazz guitarists’
amp when it was introduced in the late 1960s even though it can rock when
pressed.

During the virtual extinction of the 7591 vacuum tube in the
middle of the 1980s, many 1966 Ampeg GS-12 guitar amp owners – as well as
Fisher and HH Scott receiver owners were experimenting ways to shoehorn the 6V6
vacuum tube – in the Ampeg – and the 6L6 vacuum tube – in the Fisher and Scott
receivers with various degree of success. It might have involved serious “brain
surgery” in rearranging the wiring and the biasing resistors and coupling
capacitors of their Ampeg amps and Fisher and Scott receivers since the 6V6 and
6L6 vacuum tubes are beam tetrodes while the 7591 tube is a pentode. Though 6V6
vacuum tubes that had been “successfully” transplanted into a 1966 Ampeg GS-12R
guitar amp did manage to produce a very interesting tone that make them now
highly collectible, sadly, less skilled thermionic electronic tinkerers irreparably
damaged their Ampegs in such endeavors.

Historically, the 7591 pentode output vacuum tube was
introduced in 1958 and registered with the EIA in 1960 via Westinghouse’s
receiving tube factory in Bath, New York. Given that Dr. Harvey C. Rentschler
used to be the director of research for the Westinghouse Lamp Division, every
vacuum tube enthusiast is now wondering how instrumental Dr. Rentschler was in
the development of the famed 7591 pentode output vacuum tube. And by the way,
the 1962 Westinghouse 7591 vacuum tube is the best NOS type for this kind of
tube.

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Even though the product is primarily intended to be used in
early electric church organs, is the Leslie Organ Speaker the ultimate electric
guitar speaker?

By: Ringo Bones

Maybe it is its built-in paper coned woofer that is the
primary reason for its sweet as honey sounds, or the rotating horn being
rotated by a surprisingly silent motor system, or maybe the built-in vacuum
tube based amplifier – which resembles like either a Leak TL12 Point One or a
Quad II – that makes it the ultimate electric guitar speaker and amplifier.
Either way, why can’t today’s electric guitar amplifier / speaker manufacturers
offer something similar or even something better than the original Leslie Organ
Speaker?

The often used model of the Leslie Organ Speaker by electric
guitar players is the Leslie Model 145 Organ Speaker. It was used as a
recording session electric guitar amplifier when the late guitar legend Jimi
Hendrix recorded the studio version of Little Wing during the late 1960s. And
despite his preference of using Fender guitars an Marshall amplifiers during
his live performances, Jimi Hendrix prefer to use low-powered 1950s era Fender
tweed amplifiers connected to dual cone / whizzer cone equipped 15-inch musical
instrument speakers and Mosrite electric guitars with Bigsby tremolo bars.

All guitarists have the US Navy researcher Donald Leslie (any relation to John Leslie?) to
be eternally grateful to because it was he who designed the first generation of
Leslie Organ Speakers equipped with a silent motor system to rotate the middle
frequency-high frequency horn speaker to make its sound to fill a rather large
church space despite its built in vacuum tube based amplifier is only capable
of producing 12 watts or so. The good thing about the Leslie Model 145 Organ
Speaker is that its built in vacuum tube amplifier can easily be modified –
with just as easily as equipping it with a ¼-inch electric guitar input jack –
to be able to accept and play an electric guitar. And by the way, other famous
legendary guitarists who use the Leslie Organ Speakers when playing and
recording electric guitar were Stevie Ray Vaughan and Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour.

Even though there are digital guitar effects processors
today that allow you to be able to replicate the sound of a classic Leslie
Organ Speaker, they usually fall short in replicating the sweetness and the
sound-staging capabilities of the real thing – like the iconic Leslie Model 145
Organ Speaker if one wants to mimic Hendrix’s Little Wing riff as he originally
recorded it. Sadly, most Leslie Organ Speakers – especially the Leslie Model
145 Organ Speaker – is too low powered sound wise to be used in live stadium
rock settings.

As a “solution” to the Leslie Organ Speaker’s inability to
play loud enough in stadium rock concert settings, Pink Floyd guitarist David
Gilmour tried using Maestro Rover units. Even though they are clearly much
louder than the Leslies in studio recording session settings, the Maestro Rover
revolving / rotating full range electric guitar speakers were still deemed not
loud enough for stadium rock concert application settings. Then Phil Taylor and Paul Leader
designed something that provided Gilmour with that distinctive “Leslie” effect
that was adequately loud enough for stadium rock concert use – thus the
Doppolas were born.The Doppolas are
rotating speakers - la Leslie Model 145 Organ Speaker - except that the
Doppolas are equipped with two six inch 100-watt drivers making them loud
enough for live stadium rock concert use. Looks like today’s digital audio
processing modeling technology for electric guitar effects processing use is
still not advanced enough to replicate that rotating and whooshing Leslie Organ
Speaker tone.

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Even though they are for all intents and purposes just ultra
small vacuum tubes that were discontinued back in the late 1971, why do
electric guitar preamplifier manufacturers never made one using nuvistors?

By: Ringo Bones

Even though nuvistors were briefly reintroduced back into
the consumer electronic marketplace when Musical Fidelity CEO and Classically
trained clarinetists Antony Michaelson released the Nu-Vista Pre-Amplifier back
in August 1998 and the Nu-Vista 300 hybrid power amplifier before Michaelson
got too busy playing with the Michelangelo Chamber Orchestra while being
recorded by Tony Faulkner, these ultra-miniature vacuum tubes were sadly
largely discontinued when the 1970s rolled around. It was largely Michaelson’s
fortunate bulk-purchase of a stash of unused Mullard 6CW4 high-mu triode nuvistors
that somewhat saved the largely forgotten electronic devices from total
obscurity.

Nuvistors are a type of miniature vacuum tube introduced by
RCA into the world’s consumer electronic markets back in 1959 though Mullard
also produced it under license from RCA during the 1960s. The technology behind
nuvisors became possible after the 8-year long research of Dr. Harvey C.
Rentschler allowed him to conclude that atoms of gas – like oxygen, hydrogen or
nitrogen – actually dissolve in the crystalline structure of some metals just
as salt dissolves in water. These gas particles “loosen” the electrons in this
structure, causing them to be emitted from the metal more readily as heat is
applied. Dr. Rentschler’s findings were later published in the July 1943 issue
of the Scientific American magazine. And such phenomena lead to the development
of smaller and more efficient vacuum tubes that eventually lead to the
development of the nuvistor.

Nuvistors are thimble shaped but are actually 5 to 10 times
smaller than an actual thimble and much smaller than conventional preamplifier
vacuum tubes that were manufactured after World War II. Nuvistor triodes and a
few tetrode types were made. The newfangled ultra-miniature vacuum tubes were
made entirely of metal and ceramic.

During its heyday, manufacturing nuvistors require special
equipment since there is no intubation system to pump gases out of its ultra miniature
metal envelope. Instead, the entire structure is assembled, inserted into its
metal envelope, sealed and processed in a large vacuum chamber with simple
robotic devices. Even though the “vacuum” inside a typical thermionic vacuum
tube is 50,000 times less rarefied than the Horsehead Nebula, the vacuum
chamber used to mass produce nuvistors must have been a technological
manufacturing tour-de-force of its day to be able to maintain a “vacuum” of
about 0.000001 Torr or millimeters of mercury – a level required for a high
quality consumer electronics grade vacuum tube. By way of comparison, normal
atmospheric pressure at sea level is 760 Torr or 760 millimeters of mercury.

One of the most popular types of nuvistor during the
electronic device’s heyday was the RCA 6DS4 Nuvistor triode vacuum tube. It
measures 20-mm high and 11-mm in diameter. During much of the 1960s, nuvistors
were among the highest performing small-signal receiving tube. They feature
excellent VHF and UHF performance plus lower noise figures than early
point-contact germanium transistors. Nuvistors are widely used throughout the
1960s in television sets beginning with RCA’s “New Vista” line of color TV sets
in 1961 with the CTC-11 chassis and top-of-the-line radio and high fidelity equipment’s
RF sections. Nuvistors competed with the solid-state revolution of the 1960s
along with General Electric’s Compactron and probably held it at bay for a few
years. RCA discontinued the use of nuvistors in their television tuners by late
1971.

One famed application of nuvistors during the electronic
device’s heyday was in the Ampex MR-70 open reel tape recorder for studio use –
it was a costly studio tape recorder whose entire electronics section was based
on nuvistors. Another application of the very small nuvistor vacuum tube was in
the studio-grade microphone of the 1960s – the famed AKG / Norelco C12a, which
employed the 7586 medium-mu triode nuvistor – the first nuvistor released on
the market. It was later found out that with minor circuit modifications,
nuvistors could sufficiently serve as an “ad-hoc” replacement of the then
obsolete and no longer produced in the 1960s Telefunken VF14 tube used in the
famed Neumann U47 studio microphone.

Given that the “roadie / guitar tech” who first made those
fuzz-boxes / stomp boxes for the famed 1960s guitar-god Jimi Hendrix used to be
Jimi’s regular TV repairman, it is quite a mystery why no examples of
do-it-yourself nuvistor based electric guitar preamplifiers or effects / fuzz
boxes are in existence. The famed Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Pedal used 1960s era
germanium small signal transistors – imagine if some enterprising TV repairman
familiar with the working of nuvistors experimented replacing the early germanium
trannies with one.

Technically, nuvistors can operate up to 110 volts DC and as
low as 30 volts DC so powering one with a 9-volt PP-3 could be an engineering
challenge back in the 1960s, though today’s high-voltage lithium polymer
batteries used in Airsoft gaming applications could easily supply the 30-volt
DC anode voltage required for nuvistor fuzz pedal operation. A typical nuvistor
has an amplification factor or mu of 64 – comparable to the 12AX7 preamp tube’s
100, butnuvistors have a much stronger
transconductance or gm compared to the 12AX7 preamp tube. So if today’s top
Russian vacuum tube manufacturers like Svetlana or Sovtek / Electro Harmonix or those in Mainland China decides to
remanufacture nuvistors, it would probably end up as electric guitar
preamplifiers and fuzz / distortion effects pedals and boxes.

Saturday, June 1, 2013

Even though his work is largely devoted to energy efficient
UV lamps for zapping dangerous microbes, does Dr. Harvey c. Rentschler’s other
discoveries pave way for the post World War II electric guitar playing
revolution and Rock N’ Roll?

By: Ringo Bones

Unlike Albert Einstein, Dr. Harvey C. Rentschler never
became a household name for much of the 20th Century, and yet
without his important discoveries, contemporary popular music and electric
guitar playing after World War II would have been very different. And music
recording via mixing desk like those in the iconic Sun and Abbey Road studios
would never had existed without his discoveries and the world would also had
never heard of Elvis Presley or The Beatles without his discoveries that led to
the more efficient, smaller and cheaper thermionic vacuum tubes.

When he told his findings to a meeting of the American
Physical Society which was then published in the July 1943 issue of the
Scientific American magazine, Dr. Harvey C. Rentschler told the attendees about
what he had found out in experiments which he conducted eight years before. It
led him to conclude that atoms of gas – oxygen, hydrogen or nitrogen – actually
dissolve in the crystalline structure of some metals just as salt dissolves in
water. These gas particles then “loosen” the electrons in this structure,
causing them to be emitted from the metal more readily when heat is applied.
This explanation, according to Dr. Rentschler, should result in longer-lasting
thermionic vacuum tubes and accomplish important savings to the size and number
of batteries, generators and other apparatus needed to supply the filament
power.

Without discovering the then unknown principles that led to
the advanced thermionic vacuum tube design principles that led to smaller, more
energy efficient thermionic vacuum tubes by Dr. Rentschler, Rock N’ Roll would
never had existed and electric guitar playing would be a rather expensive hobby
dominated by large inefficient vacuum tubes and ultra-expensive gear the
average kid from the 1950s could never afford. Dr. Jim Marshall would probably
use something else entirely when he developed his now iconic Marshall Amplifier
back in 1962. Thanks to Dr. Harvey C. Rentschler, we have 12AX7 preamplifier
tubes that can operate with anode voltages as low as 45 volts DC – making the
now 48 Volt DC phantom power de rigueur in the modern post World War II
recording studio when Les Paul invented it.